


City of Mirrors

by Siavahda



Series: Runed [4]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Clary is a Lewis, DVD Extras/Special Content, F/F, F/M, Gen, Incest, M/M, Mortal Instruments rewrite, Multi, Simon is a Fray, jimon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DVD Extras/Special Content for the Runed series. A collection of snippets and extra scenes from around City of Shadows and sequels; primarily 'canon' scenes retold from another character's perspective. Feel free to request a particular scene/character!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. At First Sight: Jace

**Author's Note:**

> No, this is not City of Dreams. CoD is the next part of the Runed series (part 1.5) but is still under construction. It has NOT been abandoned, I just have a lot going on right now. In an effort to get back into the headspace for Runed, I will occasionally rewrite Runed scenes from the POV of another character - like this, Jace's first glimpse of Simon in City of Shadows. Feel free to make requests; I can't promise I'll get to them all, but if one inspires me I'll probably pounce on it.
> 
> Thank you so much for all your patience and encouragement, guys. I can't tell you how much it means to me that so many of you have stuck with me and still care about this series! I love you all <3
> 
> (Also, no CoHF spoilers, please. I haven't even started it yet!)

 

   Here goes nothing _, Simon thought. His fingers found the opening chords of_ Make a Move _, the music unwound like a roll of silk, and he opened his mouth and sang..._

_City of Shadows , chapter one_

 

   “Tell me again who reported this?” Jace asked dubiously as they moved through the crowd. “All I see are idiot mundanes.” He pointed into the crush. “Look! There’s another one.”

   Beside him, Isabelle gasped. “You’re right!” Her eyes widening, she spun in a small circle. “Raziel, they’re everywhere!”

   “Hilarious, you two,” Alec said dryly. “Really. I think you broke my funny bone.”

   Jace peered at him. “Was that a _joke_ , Lightwood?”

   Isabelle laughed as her brother swiped for Jace’s head; Jace neatly sidestepped. “I think we found the shapeshifter, Izzy,” he grinned. “Making jokes on a hunt? This can’t possibly be Alec.”

   Alec rolled his eyes. “When you’re _quite_ done, we have an Eidolon to find.” He held up a hand before Jace could speak. “It doesn’t matter where the intel came from; Hodge ordered us out here, and we’re not going back to the Institute –”

   “ – _until the demon is dead or the area is cleared,”_ Jace and Izzy recited in unison.

   “We _know_ , Alec,” Isabelle added. “Lighten up a little, would you?”

   “An Eidolon is not a joking matter –”

   As the two Lightwoods bickered, Jace pulled ahead of them, scouting their surroundings carefully despite his earlier teasing. After so many years, he no longer noticed how the mundanes moved out of his way like a shoal of fish parting around a shark. The same racial memory that made them afraid of the dark recognised the power in his runes, even as their eyes and ears were blind and deaf to him; they shifted aside from it without ever consciously realising he was there.

   Why they feared _him_ and still fell to demons like sheep to the slaughter he would never understand. If they would only recognise hellspawn the same way they did him, his people would have much less work to do...

   But then he might be reduced to collecting stamps to stave off boredom, and that would never do.

   He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Alec and Isabelle were still in sight, and was struck by lightning.

   Time stopped.

   There, on the stage beyond the two Lightwoods – he didn’t _draw_ Jace’s attention; he demanded it, commanded it, _tore_ Jace’s focus away from the wider world and towards himself alone, like a flame among shadows. And everyone else, everything else was ashes and dust: the mundanes choking the room, the potential Eidolon hiding and hunting somewhere close by, even his _parabatai_ and sister. None of them existed.

   Jace couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it.

   A boy. Just a boy, standing on the stage with a microphone and a smile that curved into Jace’s chest like claws hooking around his ribcage, painful and heady. There was nothing about that smile that should have left him feeling gut-punched and drunk and lost; it was a little uncertain, hopeful, nervous, determined – there was nothing in it of the smiles that usually hooked his attention, the smouldering, flirtatious smirks of girls as confident in their bodies as Jace was in his. There wasn’t even the silent, unimpeachable recognition of a Downworlder, that sixth sense bred into Shadowhunters centuries ago.

   But there was _something_. Something that made Jace’s heart pound and his hand reach for a blade, because it was a little like the terror he hadn’t felt since he was ten, since his father died, after which nothing could scare him because nothing could be worse. It felt like that, and it didn’t; like recognition, and relief, and submission, a sweet white bolt cutting the breath out of him and tangling around his throat in cords of velvet and _adamas_. Strength – that pureblood Shadowhunter strength he was so proud of – fled his body like water, rapture shuddering through his veins as over plucked harpstrings, almost sending him to his knees.

   _Yes, you. At last. Yours._

   Time started moving again, and Jace almost fell, the tension that had frozen him in place abruptly gone. He jerked his eyes away even as the mundane on the stage started to sing, and Jace tried to close his ears to the sound, tried to calm his racing heart. Tried, frantically, to work out what had just happened.

   _*What was that?*_ Alec demanded. Almost instantly he was there, a solid, grounding presence at Jace’s side and in his mind. “Jace?”

   Jace shook his head and wasn’t sure what he meant by it. He looked up, past Alec’s concern and Izzy’s questioning frown, to the stage.

   He’d felt interest before: the desire to cross a room and talk to someone, to a particular person. Sometimes it was a bare flicker of curiosity; sometimes it was a game. Usually it was just a diversion, a way to pass the time until the next hunt. Outside of his family, that was all anyone could ever be.

   Except that it had never been like this. It had never been a _hunger_ , but the stranger’s singing slid over his skin like heat and Jace felt _starved_ , hungry like a wolf for every detail: the cut of the boy’s clothes, his accent, the lines of his fingers wrapped tightly around the microphone, the shape of his mouth and his eyes and what was his _name?_

   Isabelle snapped her fingers in front of Jace’s face. “Hey! You with us?”

   Alec was staring at him. Jace blinked, and wondered how much of his thoughts his _parabatai_ had heard, had shared.

   “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry. Don’t know what came over me.” His mouth was dry; he licked his lips, and remembered the Eidolon demon. “Aren’t we supposed to be hunting?” Suddenly what had been little more than a joke was an unbearable weight pressing in on his chest: an Eidolon, a _demon_ , here, in the same space as that singer, could not be borne. There was too high a chance of the shapeshifter choosing that brilliant soul to snuff out; the thought of that dazzling, exultant grin turned cold and slack – that song silenced – those laughing eyes gone dark – made something close to panic break behind Jace’s ribcage.

   Demons loved the beautiful, glorious ones. They loved to destroy them.

   “What are we doing standing around? Are we living statues now? Come on.” He saw Alec and Izzy exchange a look, but he ignored them, turning away from them – and the stage – and drawing a knife in the same motion.

   He was going to find the Eidolon and send it back to Hell screaming for daring to come so close to that light.

   And maybe exorcising it from the world would excise this fairy-fruit hunger from his heart.


	2. Electro-Shock to the Heart: Simon

_“Luke says it’s magic, but we’re not really listening to Luke just now.”_

_“What? Why?” Isabelle frowned. “He’s the werewolf, right?”_

_“Right. But he’s – he wasn’t really happy when he found out that Simon was bi, and then it turned out that Jace was his_ brother _, and it all just – ” Clary waved her hand vaguely. “I don’t know. Simon was supposed to stay with him – with Luke, I mean – but after just one night he showed up on my mom’s doorstep asking to stay. Now Luke’s paying my mom for Simon’s room and board. Guilt money, I guess.”_

_City of Shadows , Epilogue the First_

 

“Simon? Come on, son, wake up.”

“Luke…?” Simon blinked up at him blearily. “What’s going on?” Suddenly he jerked upright, panic sweeping over his face as he scrambled for his glasses. “What’s wrong? Is it mom?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Luke hushed him. “We’re just going on a trip, okay? Grab your bag.”

“A trip – ?” Simon took in the dim, pre-dawn light peeking through the curtains, and reached for the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Luke, it’s four in the morning!”

“I know, I want to beat the morning traffic. Downstairs in ten.”

He was gone before Simon’s sleep-fugged brain could work up any proper objections.

Moving gingerly – yesterday’s injuries throbbed and pulsed everywhere, from the vicious cut on his cheek to his aching muscles – Simon got up and found clothes, wincing when the neck of his shirt brushed his bandaged cheek. He’d never realised how ignorant he was of pain, before. He’d sprained his wrist once when he was nine, climbing trees with Clary, but that was pretty much it until all this Shadowhunter madness had started.

And now look at him – bruised and scarred as if he’d been through a war and back.

It was cool now, but it would get hotter later in the day. He didn’t care. He pulled on a long-sleeved shirt that covered the rune-scars on his wrists, picked up the rucksack waiting by the door – the last thing he’d cared about last night was unpacking – and made his way downstairs.

“Are we going to the farmhouse?” he asked. Luke was standing by the coffee machine.

“No.” The toaster _ting_ ed, and without looking at Simon Luke plucked a pair of Pop Tarts out of the toaster and onto a plate. He pushed it in Simon’s direction. “Do you want coffee?”

“With Pop Tarts?” Simon joked. “Only if you want me high on sugar _and_ caffeine.”

Luke smiled without looking up. “Take the plate. You can eat in the car.”

The world was still dark outside; the sun was starting to rise, but Simon glimpsed sleepy stars through the car window. His stomach kept twisting, cramping as he nibbled slowly at the burningly hot Pop Tarts; he couldn’t remember ever feeling less like eating. But the sugar must have helped, because he was almost finished the first one when he realised that he still had no idea where they were headed. “Where are we going?”

 “I think it’s best if we get you out of the city for a while.” Luke flicked on the indicator lights as they turned onto another road. “Away from the Shadow World. Your mother never wanted you mixed up in all this.”

Simon felt sick. They’d taken a comatose Jocelyn to the hospital last night, their first stop after Renwicks, because she hadn’t woken and no one knew if she would, and everything was moving too fast; he was barely awake and struggling to keep up with what Luke was saying, and what he meant, which was not necessarily the same thing. “You mean Jace,” he said finally. “Right? You want me away from Jace.”

Luke stilled. “You two need to be separated. At least for a while. Until you’re both past this.”

Simon looked down at this plate. The Pop Tarts were frosted strawberry, his favourite. But suddenly the idea of eating another piece made him want to throw up.

Was he supposed to argue? Luke was right, wasn’t he? Maybe it would be better if they treated this like a drug addiction; if he rode out the withdrawals alone, far away from his drug of choice. He could go away, where he couldn’t reach Jace even if he wanted to, and eventually… Eventually he wouldn’t want to anymore.

Right? And. He should want that. To not want. Anymore.

But fuck, it felt like dying to even think it.

_Jace’s face pressed into his neck, trembling like something about to shake apart. “ Dam habrit ava yoter mimayim shel harehem.”_

_ The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. _

Simon swallowed. His mouth was dry. “What about mom?”

“I’ll take care of her,” Luke said reassuringly. “She’ll be fine.” The roads weren’t busy at this hour, but the city was still awake; yellow taxi cabs picked up people just going home from the clubs, and Simon glimpsed a sleek looking rat disappearing down a storm drain. “You didn’t meet her last night, but the best healer in the world works at the Beth Israel, a warlock called Catarina Loss. She’ll have Jocelyn awake in no time. Probably just in a few days.”

He kept talking about the warlock healer, but Simon’s brain had stuttered to a halt. “What do you mean, you’ll take care of her?” he blurted. “You’re not coming with me?”

“Well, of course I’m taking you there – but no, Simon, I’m not going to stay with you.” Luke sipped coffee from his thermos. It was dark blue, Simon noticed inanely, with a howling wolf against a bright yellow moon. The kind of thing Jocelyn might have bought her friend as a joke. “Someone’s got to be here for your mother, and I have to keep the bookstore running – ”

The cold, sick seed in the pit of Simon’s stomach began to sprout, vines of frost and poison that slowly picked their way through his body. “Luke, where am I going?”

“It’ll be just like visiting the farmhouse,” Luke said, not quite answering the question. “There’s so much space, Simon, and they even have a music program – ”

And maybe he was already too much of a Shadowhunter, because Simon heard _so much space_ and translated it to _far away and isolated_ while Luke was still talking about the music –

“Luke,” he snapped, cutting the man off mid-word, _“where are you sending me?”_

The man he’d thought of as his father wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s a healing centre.”

“A _healing centre?_ What does that even mean?” Dark suspicions were whispering in the back of his mind, but Simon tried desperately to silence them; the last few days had made him paranoid, he was jumping to conclusions. This was _Luke_ , the man was practically his _dad_. He wouldn’t –

“It’s a place for teenagers who need to get away from the world for a while,” Luke said. “Sounds pretty perfect, doesn’t it?”

 _No,_ a voice whispered, _it sounds like a place that confiscates your phone and cuts you off from the outside until you accept their brainwashing._

Simon took a deep breath. “Luke, I don’t need healing. Okay? I’m fine. I _will be_ fine.” His throat felt tight. “I appreciate the thought, but I’d rather go home.”

So quick. Luke had arranged this so quickly, and woken Simon up early enough that Simon was guaranteed to be exhausted, still injured, not at his best; more likely to trust and go along with anything his almost-dad said. It hinted at the same kind of horrible manipulation that had gotten half a wolf pack killed last night.

Maybe more than half.

“I think this is something you should do.” Luke kept his eyes on the road. “You’re very confused right now, Simon, and you need people who know how to deal with that. This place – they can help you get better.”

“ ‘Get better’?” Simon was burningly aware of his rucksack resting just against his foot, close enough to snatch up in an instant. “What’s wrong with me?”

Luke glanced at him, his gaze not quite meeting Simon’s eyes but pinpointed on his forehead instead. “You fell in love with your brother, Simon.”

“I didn’t know who he was. _He_ didn’t know who he was.” The devastation on Jace’s face… Simon swallowed. “It was a mistake,” he said, struggling not to choke on the words. It still didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like the only right thing he’d ever done. “We know now. I don’t need some freaks at a _healing centre_ to help me with that.”

“No, but you’d never have fallen for Jace in the first place if you weren’t confused.” Luke took a sip of his coffee, apparently oblivious to how Simon had frozen in his seat. “It’s okay, you know. It happens to a lot of kids. When I was younger, I nearly – ” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. The point is, these people can help you. You’ll stay there for a little while, not long, until – ”

“Until I’m _better?”_ Simon asked. “What does that mean, Luke? If this isn’t about Jace, then what is it? Is this place – ” _I must be wrong, this can’t be right, Luke wouldn’t –_ “supposed to make me straight or something?”

Luke didn’t answer.

“Oh god.” Simon’s eyes, bizarrely, stung with tears as his whole body turned to ice in a single sweep. “Oh god, tell me you’re joking, tell me this is a fucking joke – ”

“Simon, calm down, all right? This is just – ”

 _“Calm down?_ Are you fucking kidding me? Are you _insane?_ You’re the one who needs fucking help, not me!” There wasn’t enough air in the car. There wasn’t – Luke – “You can’t do this.”

“It’s just for a little while, Simon – ”

“No, I mean you _legally cannot do this_ , you’re not my dad, you legally can’t institutionalise me – ”

“It’s not a mental hospital, Simon.” Luke’s voice was soothing, but Simon wasn’t going to be soothed. Was this a panic attack? Was this what it felt like? The complete inability to breathe, the shock of it, the sense that the world was crumbling to dust around you – “And with your mother ill, I’m your legal guardian. She had the paperwork done years ago.”

That faint hope went up in smoke. “You think this is what she would want? For you to _kidnap me –_ ”

“You’re being dramatic.”

Simon stared at him, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Legal lesson 101 for you, you unbelievable _Sith_ : kidnapping is the bodily abduction of someone for the purposes of terrorising the victim or some third person, and that is _literally what you are doing right now.”_

“Terrorising?” Luke changed gears as he merged with another line of traffic. “No one’s going to terrorise you, Simon, this place will _help_ you.”

 _“I don’t need help!”_ Simon shouted. “There’s nothing fucking wrong with me!” He’d read the survivor stories about such places on Tumblr, had nightmares of the sick barbarity those victims had gone through – and that was only words, was _nothing_ compared to what the reality must be like.

Fuck, _fuck_ , this was _Luke_ , how could he fucking do this –

“You can’t even look at me.” He couldn’t breathe. “Fucking _look at me_ , Luke!”

Luke didn’t.

Did they still perform electro-shock therapy in those places? Simon didn’t know. And what if he lost it, what if that other in his head came out again like it had last night? He could slaughter everyone in there; the bastards running it, but also the teenagers, the ones who were victims like he was –

This was _insane_ –

Simon glanced at the window, didn’t realise what he was looking for until a cool voice pointed out _no oncoming traffic_ and he found his fingers on the door handle.

Luke noticed. “Simon, what are you – Simon!”

Simon didn’t even think; his seatbelt was off and he snatched up his rucksack and the door opened while his name was still in Luke’s mouth and he just –

Fell.

Dropped and rolled with his bag clutched to his chest and his cheek hit the ground and he nearly screamed at the punch of pain, the vicious tearing of hard tarmac at his skin and clothes. The world flipped over and over and he had to get up, get up quickly, he was in the road and there would be other cars –

“Simon!”

Sick and dizzy, Simon clambered to his feet on autopilot – and scrambled the few feet’s distance between where he’d ended up and the pavement, getting out of the way of the oncoming cars. He could hear Luke calling him but he didn’t care, he wasn’t going back, he had to bolt – fuck, if Luke caught him –

He had no idea where he was, but he started running. The muscles in his legs shrieked but he barely noticed, was only distantly aware of the bruising pain.

The tears falling down his cheeks burned like acid, and they were all that he could feel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, the ‘Sith’ Simon is talking about when he insults Luke are the Jedi's evil counterparts from Star Wars. My headcanon is that when he was little, Jocelyn told Simon off for saying ‘shit’, and Simon started saying ‘Sith’ instead because it almost sounds the same.
> 
> And now guys, let's talk about Luke.
> 
> I'm sure there are going to be people who read this chapter/scene thing and are horrified that Luke would behave like this. However, I think those people are being naive. 
> 
> It's important to separate what I'm about to say from canon!Luke. Canon!Luke comes from an Idris that is different in many important ways to Runed!Idris, so not all of what I say now applies to canon!Luke. Also, canon!Luke's backstory is not the same as Runed!Luke's backstory. They are not quite the same character.
> 
> Now: Runed!Luke comes from a _viciously_ homophobic society. It's a safe bet that the Shadowhunters in this verse view homosexuality as an illness at best. There are no traditionalist Shadowhunters who would disapprove of Luke's actions in this chapter; in fact, they'd probably be _very_ interested to hear that mundanes have ways to 'cure' homosexuality. (Not that they actually do, of course, which hopefully does not need to be said here). Another point: Luke canonically murders a werewolf he doesn't know to gain canon fodder for rescuing Jocelyn. There is no way you can convince me that at this point in the canon series he is not a) capable of sociopathic levels of manipulation and antipathy and b) horrifically prejudiced against Downworlders. Luke does not think of himself as a werewolf; in his mind, he's a Shadowhunter, always has been and always will be. He constantly says 'them' not 'us' when talking about werewolves, in Runed and in canon both. Luke was the Nephilim equivalent of a Nazi, and I don't buy the 'but he didn't fight in the Uprising!' argument; he didn't break away from Valentine until he was literally driven out. Luke never _left_ the Circle; he was kicked out. There's a huge difference, when we're talking about a person's moral compass. 
> 
> Runed!Luke is absolutely capable of manipulating an injured, exhausted teenage boy into the car, and taking him to a gay conversion centre. _And thinking that this is the absolutely correct thing to do._
> 
> I do believe that canon!Luke has significantly grown and evolved from that point, else Jocelyn would never marry him. And I have plans for Luke's arc. But at this point in the series, Luke has some serious issues and I do not recommend thinking of him as an automatic good guy.


	3. The White Knight is a Princess: Clary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completed at 1:30 in the morning and completely un-beta-ed. I'll check for mistakes tomorrow, okay? I just really wanted to get this up, because OLIANTHE AND CLARY! 8D I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

_Simon looked—and saw Clary. She was laughing, and for a second Simon’s heart gave a little pang, because her head was tipped close to the faerie girl from earlier, the one with fireflies glowing like little green gems in her hair, and the two of them were dancing so close—_

_Hang on. A faerie_ girl?

_City of Shadows, chapter thirteen_

 

_“I have a heart that gets on everybody’s nerves!_

_They don’t want the truth, they just want the wo~rds,_

_Blah blah blah blah, and I can sing until I’m dead,_

_And none of you’ll remember a single thing I said!”_

 

The drink in her glass shone as bright a green as absinthe as, behind her, Millennium Lint started into their second song of the night. The music had convinced Magnus’ guests to look past the band’s mundane origins; the apartment was full of moving bodies and laughing lips, people of all descriptions dancing along to Simon’s unique brand of cynically-defiant grunge-pop. Sipping from her goblet-chalice thing—it had a little dragon wrapped around the stem, the bowl formed of its spread wings—Clary let her eyes trail back and forth over the party-goers, savouring the circumstances as much as the taste of secrets sliding green over her tongue.

She’d always known, deep down, that magic had to exist somewhere. Granted, she hadn’t envisioned emotastic blondes with attitude problems, but she’d take the likes of Jace if it meant warlocks and werewolves were real too.

And faeries.

She swung her legs back and forth over the edge of the stage, trying to look obliviously casual and not stare. It was hard, though. The vampires were all graceful and slender like runway models, and Magnus combined glitter and punk in an outfit that must have required magic to make work as well as it did, but it was the faeries that made her heart beat faster.

Her dad used to tell her stories about the fey, before he died. He had converted to Judaism for Clary’s mother, but he still knew all kinds of amazing stories from his childhood in England, stranger and darker than the tales her mom had thought appropriate for a six year old. Clary’s father told her about the faeries of the British Isles, who had long ago been worshipped as gods; the unabashedly evil Unseelie Court, and the Seelie fey who hid their cruelty behind beauty dazzling enough to make you weep.

She knew what he’d meant by that now.

The vampires were humanity honed and polished into something hard and cold and glittering, mortality turned into a hedonistic play. The data pool was too small to make generalisations about warlocks, but the _otherness_ that Magnus wore like a cloak seemed just another accessory to him—he felt human, warm and recognisable to her little mortal self.

But the faeries—oh, if her dad could see _them_. They weren’t only not-human; they had never been human, and never would be. Studying them as if for a life art class, Clary struggled to put it into words. It was the way they moved, as if the earth couldn’t hold them, or as if they were a part of it, avatars for some rich, deep power humans had lost long ago. It was in their gestures, evocative and eerily elegant even when hummingbird-quick. It was…a kind of confidence, a pure and animal shamelessness, a lack of self-consciousness that could never be mistaken for human. 

And unlike the vampires, who all looked more or less alike, the fey were all wildly different. Some were in jeans, and some danced to Lint’s songs in insane concoctions of fur and birch leaves. She saw faeries with lion tails and faeries with the eyes of birds; a boy with huge ram horns curling black as jet from his head, and a girl dressed in a cloud of snow-white silk that might have been actual snow. They dripped moonstones or wore tiny flames in glass jars around their necks, feathers woven in their hair and copper claws dangling from their sculpted ears. The sheer _variety_ of them all made her long for her sketchbook.

She sipped her drink. It tasted like distilled emeralds, a dizzying kind of richness that flashed over her tongue as if she really were drinking jewels.

And then there was that one girl. The one Clary kept sneaking glances at, because she was wearing a frock coat of silver-gold silk and a lace cravat like frothy champagne at her throat, and Clary couldn’t figure out if she wanted to go talk to her or just _be_ her. Usually it would not be a problem; under normal circumstances, Clary would hop down from her spot at the edge of the stage and go say hi, because anyone that interesting-looking ought to be worth a conversation at least.

But normal circumstances did not include faeries, and however pretty and magical everything seemed right now, Clary had read too many stories to not be wary. Faeries weren’t little rainbow-winged pixies; they were powerful and ageless and _other_ , not just not-human but inhuman. Never-human.

It was probably better to stay over here.

_“Took our dreams and got in line!_

_Held our breath and hoped to die,_

_Fade on~!_

_And all along, we got it wrong!_

_Live a slow and painful life,_

_Put our heart on hold inside,_

_Fade on~!”_

 

She could look though, and she did, trying to memorise as much as possible so she could set it all down on paper later. The fabulous boots, knee-high and either woven out of or entirely covered in peacock feathers—Clary coveted them with an all-consuming covetousness. And good lord, that _hair!_ The long river-spill of it, tumbling down to the faerie girl’s hips in a wave of gold like something created on Rumplestiltskin’s spinning wheel, was just _unreal_ ; there were braids in it, and some dreadlocks too. Some of it was swept up into a knot at the back of the girl’s skull, pinned in place by two hair sticks.

The juxtaposition of luxurious gender-bending high-fashion with that hair made Clary’s mouth a little dry.

Luckily, she had this lovely drink to keep her company.

 

_“Oh I hate your static pace,_

_You ask no questions let things be!_

_All you people never learn—_

_And your heart gets on my nerves!_

_And your heart gets on my nerves!_

_And your heart gets on my nerves!”_

 

Simon’s voice hooked her, his verse slicing through her hesitation like a paperknife. What was she doing? Sitting here too scared to talk to a magical creature— _really?_ Who said she would ever get this chance again? And she was going to waste it playing eye-candy on the stage?

No way in hell, baby.

“Hello,” the girl said. “What may I call you?”

Clary, who had just been about to jump down, nearly fell off the stage. “Christ, where did you come from?” she blurted.

The faerie smiled. There was sweetness in it, but something catlike too, something creamy and wickedly puckish that made Clary want to grin back at her, and shiver, and _play._ “You have been watching me,” she said, amusement spreading through her voice like wine in water. “I thought to introduce myself.” Her eyes were the same blend of green-gold-blue as the peacock feathers on her boots. They had no whites at all, like the eyes of a reptile or bird. “I am called Olianthe.”

Clary hesitated a moment, remembering that you should never give your name to a faerie – but Clary was only a nickname, not her full, true name. “Nice to meet you, Olianthe. You can call me Clary.”

“Clary,” Olianthe murmured wonderingly, as if someone had just tipped something rare and precious into her hands. It did odd things to Clary’s insides. “Was I correct? Have you been watching me?”

“Indeed I have,” Clary said. There were fireflies in Olianthe’s hair, glittering like tiny green gems, and bells smaller than Clary’s pinkie nail, and a single peacock feather gleaming blue. Up close, she saw that the faerie girl’s hair sticks were miniature battle-axes, the double-headed blades made of some kind of crystal. The need to draw her was a physical ache lodged beneath Clary’s breastbone, hot and pulsing. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Not at all.” Olianthe’s lips quirked up, sharp and laughing. “I noticed you looking, did I not?”

Because she had been watching Clary, she meant. “Well, of course,” Clary said grandly, recovering quickly. “Why wouldn’t you? I _am_ the most fabulous person in the room.”

“You are,” Olianthe agreed, and Clary was about to brush it off when she remembered that faeries couldn’t lie.

“May I bring you another drink?” Olianthe asked, and Clary glanced down at her cup to find it nearly empty.

“I don’t think accepting faerie food is usually a good idea,” she said after a beat.

Olianthe laughed, and it was warm and real. “You are correct. But Magnus _ashipu_ has provided all the beverages tonight; they will not bind you. And I would find you something lovely and unharmful.”

“Is that so?” Clary looked at her. “And are _you_ lovely and unharmful, Miss Olianthe?”

“Lovely, always.” Olianthe tilted her head slightly. “Unharmful…sometimes.” And she smiled.

Clary grinned back. “Then go fetch me another drink,” she bid, because this girl-creature was intoxicating and delightful, and talking to her was like dancing, and Clary refused to let her fear rule her. “I think I’d like to get to know you better.”

Olianthe stepped back and swept her a bow, holding her left hand out behind her as her right crossed her abdomen. The sleeves of her coat ended halfway between her elbows and wrists, revealing sun-gilded skin. “As the lady desires,” she purred, and when she rose her eyes sparked electricity beneath Clary’s skin.

*

The drink Olianthe brought her was blue, a shimmering neon turquoise, and as the faerie girl handed it over she was careful not to touch Clary’s fingers.

Clary wondered about that as she sipped. The drink tasted like mangos and cherries and sparkled down her throat, and she made a note to drink it slowly in case it went to her head.

“So what does a girl have to do to get clothes that awesome?” she asked. Despite the proximity of the band, Clary had no problem hearing Olianthe over the music, or being heard. She assumed it was faerie magic and went with it.

Olianthe grinned at her, feral. “The Seelie tailor owed me a favour,” she said. “I decided to call it in tonight.” Her features were fine and sharp, like calligraphy gone wild and wonderful. She drank nothing, and didn’t seem to feel the need to occupy her hands somehow. “I shall have to tell her that her outfit accomplished its task admirably.”

Clary raised a single eyebrow in question.

Olianthe shrugged, a liquid motion of her shoulders, a certain twist in her forearms. “It caught your attention, did it not?”

“And were you specifically looking to catch my attention?” Clary asked, raising the other eyebrow. “You don’t know me.”

It felt like adrenalin, this addictive almost-nausea.

“But from the moment I saw you, I knew that I wanted to,” Olianthe said simply, and Clary stared at her.

“I didn’t think faeries were so honest,” she said, trying to remain poised with something like laughter bubbling in her throat, something glittering and exciting rushing through her veins like a drug. “But clearly you have good taste.”

Olianthe smirked. “I like to think so.” She spun her hand lazily. “A human walking into a revel without the protection of a dream-haze? Who seats herself where all the monsters can see her, burning like a flame with her hair and her fierce mortality, and dares herself to be afraid?” Her peacock-tail eyes shone. “Yes, that is someone I would dearly like to know.”

“Sweet-talker,” Clary managed.

“Well.” Olianthe grinned. “I _am_ fey.”

Clary laughed.

Olianthe painted her pictures with her hands, sketching in the air between them. When Clary asked about the different kinds of faerie—“the People,” Olianthe called them, explaining that ‘faerie’ was a human term—she told Clary about the tribes of mermaids that lived in the Atlantic and sometimes swam up the Hudson to trade shark teeth and kraken ink for opals and morganite. She told her about the gargoyles on the old Riverside Church, and how some of them came alive at night, hunting moths and drinking the dew before turning back into stone come dawn. She described the festivities the Seelie Queen threw every solstice in Central Park, the guests in their cloaks of hummingbird feathers and with ivory collars around their necks, dancing around emerald bonefires that reached for the stars.

“Will you dance with me, Clary?” she asked, and Clary couldn’t imagine a reason to say no.

She didn’t know what this was, exactly, as she followed Olianthe away from the stage. Her chest felt a little tight, and she longed to _move_ ; she wanted to laugh and sing and tease, wanted to see that flash of hot something in the faerie girl’s eyes again. There was something too addictive in the way Olianthe seemed to look at only her, in the way those peacock eyes stayed fixed on Clary as they spoke, in her fresh, shameless honesty. She was like something out of a story, and she’d walked out of her myth to find _Clary_ , just for her—and that was intoxicating.

Sometime during their conversation, Simon had disappeared, and the party had briefly gone quiet. But by the time Olianthe and Clary moved away from the stage—the other Downworlders making way for Olianthe, parting just a little to let her and Clary through—someone had hooked up an mp3 player to the speakers, and the familiar strains of Swedish House Mafia was getting people moving again.

The electrical, pulsing beat slid around Clary’s bones as they found a clear patch of floor. Her skin felt warm and charged, but Olianthe didn’t try to touch her, only smiled that feral smile as she put her own arms up in the air. The bells in her hair chimed in harmony as she moved, lithe and powerful like a big cat dressed up human for a costume party.

“Will you not dance?” Olianthe asked, grinning, and Clary realised that she was staring.

Fuck it. She loved this song. Clary closed her eyes and tipped her head back, put her arms up and let the music spin through her like a whirlwind of fire. She was beautiful, incredible, a human standing alone in a room full of monsters and fairytales, and she was going to freaking _rock_ it.

 

_“I wanna know your name, name, name, name, name, name, name…_

_Your name, name, name, name, name, name, name…_

_I wanna know your name, name, name, name, name, name, name…_

_Your name, name, name, name, name, name, name!”_

 

It made her laugh a bit, when the words got through to her; names and faeries and all the ways that could go wrong, and even with her eyes closed all she could see was the shining blue-green-gold of Olianthe’s incredible inhuman eyes, locked on her like she was the only thing in the world worth looking at.

Clary wasn’t fey, she didn’t have their intrinsic shamelessness—but by god, she was going to fake it till she made it. She ignored the quiet flutter of nerves and danced the way she wanted to, bouncing and twirling and swaying as if she stood alone in her room, with no one to see but her mirror. She let the music pour through her, spilling down through her hands and arms and into her chest, down her torso and hips and dripping down her legs like sweat, oil, honey. Her hair swirled around her and she felt it against her cheeks, brushing her shoulders, and she opened her eyes and Olianthe was right there, staring like Clary was something beautiful that might vanish if she blinked.

Clary liked it. Fuck that; she _loved_ it, the excited thrill jolting through her, making her hyper-aware of her lips and hands and the pull of her shirt over her breasts. It was gleeful and breathless and heady, and she’d never expected to feel like this for a girl but who cared, really? Olianthe was a hundred, a _thousand_ times more interesting and gorgeous than any guy who’d ever tried to chat her up, and if, maybe, she wanted to try a little interspecies romancing…

Well, Clary could be up for that.

She grinned up at Olianthe—the faerie girl was about 5’ 10’’, a good head taller than Clary—and Olianthe’s pupils abruptly narrowed to snake-slits. It changed her face, made her look hungry and longing, and it stopped Clary’s breath in her throat.

Without a word, Olianthe bent her head close to Clary’s, and Clary’s skin came alight with _wanting_ —wanting to be touched. She swayed closer to the other girl without thinking, close enough to hear the bells in Olianthe’s hair under the pounding music—

She thought Olianthe might have made some wordless, hungry sound, but it was impossible to be sure. “Clary,” she murmured, and her liquid voice was satin-hoarse, “may I—?”

“Oooh, somebody brought a _snack!”_

Clary jumped as cool arms suddenly closed around her waist from behind. The shock was like a bucket of cold water after the yearning, and before she could get her bearings she was yanked backwards, shifted like a doll into a leather-clad chest.

“Get off of me!” she snapped, trying to twist out of the grip.

But it only tightened. “A live one!” the—male—voice laughed, and Clary froze as sharp teeth nipped her neck. “Got to give it to the warlock, he knows how to throw a party—”

“You will unhand her.”

Olianthe’s voice was ice, Fimbulwinter-fury, and the dark slashes of her pupils weren’t sigils for desire now but rage, and Clary thought _faeries can’t lie and she just said—_

“Jes—hey, chill out, yeah?” the vampire said, more annoyed than afraid, and Clary felt a bubble of nervous laughter catch in her oesophagus; _what does it mean when a creature that can’t lie makes a predictive statement—?_ “There’s enough to go around.”

The faerie’s eyes flashed blue-black, and fast as wind she ripped the axe-shaped hair sticks out of her hair. The knot of locks tumbled down but by the time she lowered her hands the axes were full-sized, their crystal blades huge and heavy atop long black handles, and before Clary could blink Olianthe swung one of the enormous things up and over Clary’s head to press it against the vampire’s throat.

“I do not want to upset Magnus _ashipu_ in his own home,” Olianthe said, “but if you do not release my friend before my next breath, I will take your head.”

The vampire’s hands fairly flew off of Clary’s hips, and Clary bolted forward instantly, taking shelter in Olianthe’s shadow. She could see the vampire who’d grabbed her now—his short black hair and tacky Anne Rice get-up, all Goth chic—but despite the adrenalin still racing through her, Clary found her eyes locked on Olianthe’s weapons. She’d been mistaken—one blade on each axe looked like diamond, and sparkled appropriately, but the second head of each axe was made of something dark and opaque. It reminded her of a graphite pencil, actually. The dark blades were razor thin, but the diamond-y ones were immense, and Clary couldn’t believe anyone Olianthe’s size could lift such things, never mind use them.

Then she realised that _holy hells,_ Olianthe kept _battle axes_ in her _hair_.

She might be a little bit in love.

As soon as Clary was out of the vampire’s reach, Olianthe swung the axes back up into her hair—by the time she tucked them back in, they were tiny hair ornaments once again. “Please inform Camille that I will be stopping by to discuss the behaviour of her fledgelings.”

“Y-yes,” the vampire stammered. He looked terrified. Clary felt a bit too smug to be healthy.

Olianthe sniffed. “Begone, leech,” she ordered, “before I reconsider my mercy!”

The vampire fled, and Olianthe turned to Clary. “Are you well?”

Clary considered. Her pulse was still pressed hard against the inside of her wrists, as if it might break out of her, but she didn’t think it was all fear. Or all for the vampire.

“Yes,” she told Olianthe. “I think I am.” She opened her mouth to thank Olianthe for the rescue, and bit her tongue at the last moment, remembering that she shouldn’t. “I…appreciate what you did,” she said instead, carefully, hoping that was all right.

Apparently it was, because the other girl smiled. “Of course.”

Clary hesitated, then thought, _screw it._ “I’d quite like to kiss you, you know,” she said lightly. “I mean, it’s not every day a gorgeous warrior princess defends my virtue with hair sticks.” She paused. “A fair bit more than my virtue, actually,” she amended.

Olianthe’s pupils, which had been gradually melting back into dark orbs, sharpened. Clary felt a warm tug between her legs at the sight, the sheer _rush_ of eliciting a primal physical reaction from someone she found attractive. “I would quite like to kiss you, also,” the faerie girl said lowly.

“Oh, good,” Clary said brightly. “That’ll make this a lot less awkward.”

 

_“So you wanna play with magic?_

_Boy, you should know what you’re falling for,_

_Baby do you dare to do this?_

_Cause I’m coming at you like a dark horse…”_

 

When had the song changed? It didn’t matter; Clary glanced at Olianthe’s mouth and her stomach tightened, strange and new and lovely, and she thought she should probably be scared, now.

But she wasn’t.

Olianthe slowly bowed her head closer to Clary’s, and Clary thought she might expire, stunned by the flush of voltaic _want_. Olianthe’s hair fell around her like a curtain, gold silk studded with fireflies, and Clary shivered as it brushed her shoulders, the skin of her arms.

“May I?” Olianthe breathed, and her hand hovered near Clary’s jaw, not quite touching. Her eyes were all Clary could see, sapphire-emerald-gilt like a religious icon.

Clary rested her hands on Olianthe’s silk-clad hips. “Yes,” she said, and pushed up on her toes to press their lips together.

This time Olianthe definitely _did_ make a sound—something low and animal in her throat that almost made Clary moan. Her hands flew up from Olianthe’s hips to wrap around her shoulders and Olianthe’s palms found Clary’s jaw, cradling her face like something of incalculable worth. The music was still playing, Katy Perry singing about love and levitation and Olianthe’s lips were soft against hers, soft and unbearably, maddeningly sweet, brushing back and forth over Clary’s mouth like velvet butterflies. Each pass was breathlessly teasing, sweetly torturous when Clary wanted a hell of a lot more, thank you _very_ much, than this chaste cruelty.

She slid her fingers into Olianthe’s hair and bit down on the other girl’s lip.

The sound of stunned lust the faerie made was going to be replaying in Clary’s fantasies for _years_.

“Fucking _kiss_ me,” Clary growled, and Olianthe’s pupils went so narrow they were hardly visible, and her mouth came down, and—

Oh. _Oh._

Olianthe’s tongue stroked its way into Clary’s mouth and she tasted like fruit, sweet and ripe and rich and Clary’s knees trembled, stunned by sheer sinfulness of the other girl’s plush tongue. Her arm slid around Clary’s waist and drew her closer, against the silk of her coat and the faint swell of her breasts, and the fireflies hovered around Clary’s glow bracelets and she was so _hungry_. She pulled Olianthe’s mouth harder against hers, nipping at her lip again, stroking her hands down Olianthe’s throat and shoulders, her palms aching for contact, for touch, the lush hot throb between her legs immediate and raw. She thought of Olianthe’s fingers sliding inside her and gasped for breath, resisting the urge to demand service of those long, elegant—

Olianthe’s fingertip stroked up Clary’s throat, tipping her face back to the faerie’s lips, and Clary swayed forward into it, opening her mouth for more. Tongue and teeth thrilled her to the bone, and this time she gave as good as she got, trailing her nails over the back of Olianthe’s neck and smirking into the kiss when the other girl shivered against her, pressing closer hungrily.

_“Clary,”_ Olianthe murmured, like a prayer or a curse, and Clary felt like a _goddess_ —

“Olianthe- _nin,”_ a voice said timidly, somewhere far too close. “It grows late.”

Olianthe bit Clary’s lip gently—it made her stomach twist with heat—before gently pulling away.

Clary looked at their interruption. A young-looking male faerie with a mane of hair like a lion looked uncomfortable, keeping his gaze on the floor rather on the two women in front of him. It was hard not to grin at his obvious discomfort.

_Scandalising faeries now. Oops._

Olianthe sighed. “He is right,” she said lowly. “I must go.” She bent her head once more, gently brushing her lips over Clary’s. “May I see you again?”

“Definitely,” Clary managed. “That is most definitely a thing which should happen.”

Olianthe grinned. Straightening, she plucked a firefly from her hair and blew it towards Clary like a kiss. The living jewel settled in Clary’s hair. “Tell that one when you wish to see me, and I will come,” she said.

Clary raised a hand to gently nudge the firefly, who seemed perfectly content. “I’ll do that,” she promised.

Olianthe’s smile-smirk carved straight through her. “Good.” She clasped Clary’s face and kissed her again, one last time.

It seared through Clary like a lightning bolt. Her toes curled in her converse, and she shivered as her nipples rubbed against her bra. She bit Olianthe’s lip in retaliation, and felt a purr in her throat at the other girl’s choked growl.

She was smirking when Olianthe pulled away.

“Remember me tomorrow,” Olianthe murmured. “And tonight.” Her eyes nearly glowed. “Until next time, Clary.”

“Until next time,” Clary echoed, ever so slightly dazed as the faerie girl walked away, escorted by her lion-fey companion.

Clary reached up to brush the little firefly. If she had anything to say about it, _next time_ wouldn’t be very far away at all.

 

* * *

 

NOTES

 

The first song is Nerves by Icon For Hire. The second is One (Your Name) by Swedish House Mafia. Third is Katy Perry’s Dark Horse.

The Fimbulwinter is the prelude to Ragnarok in Nordic mythology; a terrible winter that lasts three years.

The blades on Olianthe’s axes are made from, respectively, lonsdaleite (the diamond look-alike) and graphene (the dark blades).

_Nin_ is a title meaning Queen/princess in Sumerian.


End file.
